With all the fuzz around privacy and safety when discussing drones, I was curious about all the positive sides drones could have. Not only by looking at the applications of drones such as the delivery of parcels or drone racing, but also by looking at the markets. It is obvious that companies selling these drones are increasing their revenue, but there is an entire (secondary) market growing around these drones. In my opinion, this (secondary) market can be divided into two markets: the drone accessories market and the “drone services market”.
When looking at the drone accessories market, this market gains the most momentum from the primary drone market. Companies are shifting their focus more to the drone market, because of its potential. Yesterday Verizon, one of the largest telecom providers in the US, announced it is going to sell specific data plans for drones. I agree, it is only a marketing thingy because the plans are exactly the same as for smartphones, but it shows marketing is more and more creeping towards the drone market. Also, insurance companies such as AIG are offering custom drone liability insurance packages for businesses in case something goes wrong flying these drones.
The drone services market is also growing. This market revolves around companies/people offering their drone and themselves as pilots for making aerial videos of houses (for real estate purposes) or sporting events. I think this market will eventually grow further because of all the services that will be provided for drones. I am thinking about drone repair services and even more drone training services for consumers and companies. What do you guys think? How will the drone market (primary or secondary) grow in the future?
Sources:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/verizon-to-start-selling-wireless-data-plans-for-drones-1475774573
http://www.aig.com/business/insurance/specialty/unmanned-aircraft-solutions
Hi Rens, nice blog post. I think the picture of your blog post is basically a really good visualization of what I think about drones. As the technology of drones becomes better and better, more companies/people will start to use drones. Our cities are full with cars nowadays and it is really time-consuming and costly to get any kind of packages to the place where you want with conventional transportation methods. So my prediction is that delivery companies such as Post NL or DHL will first start using the technology on a larger scale. Mails and packages will be brought to distribution centers outside cities and from there the drones take other and deliver the mail to paking stations. After companies started to adopt drones and the technology became mature, regular people will follow to buy drones on a larger scale. (not only enthusiasts as it is the case today) Once drones become a mainstream phenomenen it will be necessary to regulate the airspace for drones in order to avoid accidents. Further, it might be reasonable to introduce a drone recognition system that can assigne each drone to its owner. This is not only handy in case a drone gets lost but also for accountability reasons. If a person is responsible for an accident it should be possible to find out who is responsible. Besides that I think a drone driver license will be introduced at some point, to make sure people know how to use drones and also to make them aware of the dangers associated with drones such as disturbing actual planes. So I agree with you, there is definitely a giant market for drones in the future. These are my thoughts about this topic, what do you think Rens?
Dear Rens, great post about the drone markets. I personally think that the “drone services market” still has a lot of potential to grow. More countries are embracing drones and allowing them to be used for different purposes. The UK is allowing Amazon to test their drone delivery service, eventually being able to deliver packages in 30 minutes to the customer. In addition to your story, Verizon is also planning to use drones as flying cell towers to cover bad or no signal spots in their network during emergencies. The European Emergency Number Association is experimenting with drones for first aid. And because the drones have the ability to process images from multiple perspectives that can be used for analysis and on-the-spot decision-making, it makes them a game-changer in a number of service industries.